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CIYIL-SEKVIOE EEFOEM. 


CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM A DELUSION AND A SHAM UNDER 
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND’S ADMINISTRATION. 


SPEECH 



HON. EUGENE HALE, 

OF MAINE, ■ 


IN THE 


SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 


JANUARY 11, 1888. 



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Civil-Service Reform 



SPEECH 

OF 


HON. EUGENE HALE. 


Mr. HALE moved that the Senate proceed to the consideration of 
the following resolution: 

Whereas sections 11 and 14 of “An act to regulate and improve the civil serv¬ 
ice of the United States, ” approved January 16,1883, provide as follows: 

“Sec. 11. That no Senator, or Representative, or Territorial Delegate of the 
Congress, or Senator, Representative, or Delegate elect, or any oUicer or ein- 
ploy6 of either of said Houses, and no executive, judicial, military, or naval offi¬ 
cer of the United States, and no clerk or employe of any department, branch, 
or bureau of the executive, judicial, or military, or naval service of the United 
States, shall, directly or indirectly, solicit or receive, or be in any manner con¬ 
cerned in soliciting or receiving, any assessment, subscription, or contribution, 
for any political purpose whatever, from any officer, clerk, or employ^ of tha 
United Stales, or any department, branch, or bureau tliereof, or from any person 
receiving any salary or compensation from moneys derived from the Treasury 
of the United States. 

“Sec. 14. That no officer, clerk, or other person in the service of the United 
States shall, directly or indirectly, give or hand over to any other officer, clerk, 
or person in the service of the United States, or to any Senator or member of 
the House of Representatives, or Territorial Delegate, any money or other val¬ 
uable thing on account of or to be applied to the promotion ©f any political ob¬ 
ject whatever.” 

And whereas the spirit of said act has been interpreted by the President and 
by the Commissioners of the Civil Service Commission charged with its execu¬ 
tion as forbidding all officers of the General Government from oflensively par¬ 
ticipating in political conventions and elections, the President, in his order ad¬ 
dressed to the heads of the Departments in the service of the General Govern¬ 
ment, dated July 14, 1886, setting forth his reasons for the same, as follows: 

“Executive Mansion, Washington, Jidyli, 1886. 
“To the Heads of the Departments in the service of the General Government: 

“I deem this a proper time to especially warn all subordinates in the several 
Departments and all office-holders under the General Government against the 
use of their oflicial po.sitionsin attempts to control political movements in their 
localities. Office-holders are the agents of the peot^ie—not their masters. Not 
only is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupu¬ 
lously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official 
duty, oflending by adisplayof obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have 
relations with them as public officials. They should also constantly remember 
that their party friends from whom they have received preferment have not in¬ 
vested them with tne power of arbitrarily managing their political aflairs. They 
have no right as office-holders to dictate the p<ditical action of their party asso¬ 
ciates or to throttle freedom of action within party lines by methods and prac¬ 
tices which pervert every useful and justifiable purpose of party organization. 

“The influence of Federal office-hoiders should not be felt in the manipulation 
of political primary meetings and nominating conventions. The use by these 
officials of their positions to compa.ss their selection as delegates to political 
conventions is indecent and unfair, and proper regard for the proprieties and 
requirements of official place will also prevent their assuming the active con¬ 
duct of political campaigns. Individual interest and activity in political affair* 

. 3 




4 


•re by no means condemned. Office-holders are neither disfranchised nor for¬ 
bidden the exercise of political privileg'es, but their privilege.s are not enlarged, 
nor is their duty to party increased to pernicious activity by office-holding. A 
just discrimination in this regard between the things a citizen may properly 
do and the purposes for which a public office should not be used is easy, in the 
light of a correct appreciation of the relation between the people and those in¬ 
trusted with official place and a consideration of the necessity under our fornr 
of government of political action free from official coercion. You are requested 
to communicate the substance of these views to those for whose guidance they 
are intended. 

“GROVER CLEVELAND. ” 

And Commissioner Oberly, in his letter to the Illinois Democratic Associa¬ 
tion, dated September 29,1S87, interpreting the statute as follows: 

“ Now, does it not follow that officers, clerks, and other persons in the service 
of the United States, w'ho are organized for political purposes, and wdio by ini¬ 
tiation fees, dues, and contributions defray the expenses of this organization, 
are violat ing .sections 11 and 14 of the civil-service act? They are giving -they 
are handing over—to officers, clerks, or other pensons in the service of the 
United States, and these persons, acting as officers of the association, as the 
representatives of the associated officers, clerks, and other persons in the serv¬ 
ice of the United States, are receiving money for political purposes,money to 
be applied to the promotion of political objects.” 

And whereas it is alleged that, notwithstanding the provisions of said act, 
and notwithstanding the interpretation placed upon the .same by the authori¬ 
ties as above quoted, numerous Federal officers, appointed by the present Ad¬ 
ministration, have unduly and offensively exhibited a pernicious activity both 
In nominating conventions and in the elections following; Therefore, 

Resolved, That a select committee, to consist of seven Senators, be, and the 
same is hereby, constituted and appointed, whose duty it .shall be to examine 
fully into the pre.scnt condition of the civil service in all branches of the Gov¬ 
ernment, to ascertain whether the appointments in said service have been based 
upon merit and ((ualifications or have been distributed as parti.san favors: and 
further to fully examine and report as to the offensive participation of officers 
aud employes of the General Government in political conventions and elec¬ 
tions. 

Said committee is hereby authorized to employ a clerk and stenographer, and 
shall have power to administer oaths, send for persons and papers; to sit in 
Washington or such other places as maybe necessary, and to conduct its inves¬ 
tigations through subcommittees, the expenses of the same to be paid from the 
contingent fund of the Senate; and a full report of its proceedings shall be 
made to the Senate at as early a day as is practicable. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the motion ta 
proceed to the consideration of the resolution. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Mr. COCKiiELL. I intended to offer an amendment to the resolu¬ 
tion. I will not offer it at this time, as the Senator from Maine, I see, 
desires to make some remarks upon the resolution. I did not know 
that that was the intention for which it was called up. 

Mr. HALE. I will do whatever is agreeable to the Senator. 

Mr. COCKRELL. I shall not offer the amendment at this time. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maine has the 
floor. 

Mr. HALE said: 

Mr. President: This re.solution has been offered with the sin¬ 
cere puipo.se of securing such an investigation as will disclose to 
Congress and to the American people the present condition of the 
civil service of the Government, and the performances of high and low 
olticials in that service, as bearing upon a subject which, of late years, 
ha.s assumed in our politics a position of considerable importance. 

Since the establishment of the Government of the United States the 
extent of its civil service has kept pace with the remarkable growth of 
the country in territory, wealth, and population. All the>old Depart¬ 
ments have become swollen to an extent never dreamed of by the fathers, 
and new Departments have been created to meet the wants of the people 
in doing business with their Government. A hundred questions are 


5 


piissed upon every week by the Federal officials, touching the rights of 
^citizens, the subjects of which had no being when the Government was 
inaugurated. In the customs, in the public lands, in patents, in the 
post-office, in the Territories, and in our foreign relations a hundred 
men are needed to-day to do the work which was formerly done by two 
or three clerks. All the great business of the internal revenue is a new 
creation, and the Pension Bureau is a little world of affairs in itself. 

With all this has come a vast increase of responsibility, resting pri¬ 
marily upon the head of the Government and upon those who are called 
by him to preside over the different Departments. 

The extent and power of patronage have increased, to the alarm of 
many thoughtful men. As the years have gone by the Americiin peo¬ 
ple have seen different changes of administration, and generally the 
rule has been that each administration during the last fifty years has 
filled the offices with its political friends. When Abraham Lincoln 
took the oath of office on the 4th day of March, 1801, I venture to say 
that the proverbial hunting for a needle in a hay-stack would have been 
a no more futile effort than would have been the search for a Kepub- 
lican holding office under the General Government. The Democratic 
party stood as the exponent of the projjosition that “To the victors 
belong the spoils.” 

During the eventful years that rested with their solemn responsibil¬ 
ities upon Mr. Lincoln’s shoulders the vast concerns in which his ad¬ 
ministration became involved led to an equally vast increase in nearly 
every branch of the service, and to fill these new places, as well as the 
old ones, Mr. Lincoln’s administration looked to the loyal population 
of the country in making its appointments. The test was not so much 
politics as loyalty, and Kepublicaus and war Democrats received ap¬ 
pointment and promotion both in the field and in the civil service of the 
Government. Not a few of these beneficiaries so selected have within 
the last three years been turned out, in many cases to the charities of 
a cold world, to make places for those who neither had in the war nor 
now have any sympathy with the cause that Air. Liu<;oln so faithfully 
represented. 

During the time that has elapsed since the war the Republican party 
has held the reins, with the exception of the few years of Andrew,fohn- 
son’s troubled and fractious administration, and, with the exception of 
those years, most appointments in the civil service have been of persons 
in political sympathy with the administration. 

We have all seen that in late years it became a grievance and a scan¬ 
dal in the minds of many sincere, earnest, and patriotic men that ap¬ 
pointments should be so made. Civil-service-reform a.s.sociatious took 
up the subject in all parts of the country and discussed it and formu¬ 
lated their views, demanding reform, which were submitted to the Pres¬ 
ident and to Congress, and to the legislative and executive branches of 
the governments in different States. 

Inseparably connected with this agitation, and, perhaps, in a large 
decree accounting for the growing sentiment behind it, was the alleged 
offensive participation of men holding Federal ofiice in the politics of 
the country. The men and the associations who brought forw'arcj this 
grievance and who abhorred this scandal declared that not only the 
elections but the primaries and the c.aucuses which selected candidates 
to be supported by the different parties were under the manipulation 
and control of those who were generally known as and called “ofiice- 
holders.” It was proclaimed everywhere by those who urged the re¬ 
form and the cry was taken up by Democratic newspapers and orators, 


/ 


6 


that the vast army of men holding office, numbering near a hundred 
• thousand, stood as a menace, and might at any time stifle the expression 
of the people’s voice when a change of administration should be hon¬ 
estly demanded. 

Late Republican administrations have recognized the force of this 
sentiment, and General Grant and President Hayes, during their re¬ 
spective administrations, sought to conform as far as might be with 
the reasonable demands of this agitation, and during the second ses¬ 
sion of the Forty-seventh Congress, in 1883, a Republican Congress en¬ 
acted the statute from whicii I have quoted in my resolution, which 
statute was approved by a Republican Pjresident and became the law 
of the land. 

President Arthur honestly and faithfully set the machinery of this 
statute to work and in all the appointments to the classes covered by 
its provisions strictly followed its directions. The comparison that I 
would suggest between President Arthur’s course in this matter and 
the course of his successor is that President Arthur, as in all things in 
which he engaged, made no proclamation of his superior virtue in start¬ 
ing out, but contented himself with modestly and earnestly doing his 
duty under the law. He was not claqued and applauded, but none 
the less he was a practical and earnest civil-service reformer. I have 
not heard the contrary asserted or claimed. In transmitting the report 
of the Civil Service Commissioners, February 28, 1884, to Congress he 
says: “ Upon the good result which this law has already accomplished 
I congratulate Congress and the people, and I avow my conviction that 
it will henceforth prove to be of still more signal benefit to the public 
service. ” The Republican party, which President Arthur represented, 
was content to see the operation of the civil-service-refoim statute 
carried out through the laud. A noticeable change took place in the 
construction of its party organizations, both in national and State pol¬ 
itics, and all men holding office under the Government or connected 
in any way with its executive or legislative departments disappeared 
from its national. State, and local committees, and the management of 
its organizations through such committees passed into other hands. 
Like the acts of President Arthur, this was done with no flourish of 
trumpets, but simply as a tribute of obedience to the spirit of the law 
which had been enacted. 

I have not yet seen any recognition of this action of the leaders of the 
Republican party from any of the organizations which assume to rep¬ 
resent civil-service reform throughout the country. 

It is but fair to say for the persons who constituted the civil service 
of the Federal Government at the time when the statute was enacted 
that in a vast majority of cases no complaint was made against them; 
they attended to their duties faithfully; they were good citizens, ap¬ 
preciated by their neighbors and friends. The administration of the 
Government through their labors had been conducted under one party 
for nearly twenty-five years with unexampled success. The percent¬ 
age of deficits, of defalcations and embezzlements and losses to the 
Government in all its vast transactions had steadily decreased, so that 
under the last Republican administration the rates of the losses was 
so small as compared with the corresponding rate in the last Demo¬ 
cratic administration that the general charges of inefficiency and cor¬ 
ruption were listened to by no well-informed man. It is worth the 
while here for me to read the tables showing the rates of such losses 
during the last forty years; 


Ratios of Democratic defalcations compared with Republican honesty. 


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In the great work of the Internal-Kevenue Bureau, the astonishing, 
unexampled spectacle was presented of more than one hundred millions 
of dollars being collected yearly for seven years, through an army of 
employes numbering more than five thousand, every dollar of which 
had been turned into the United States Treasury, not even one cent 
being lost to the Government. 

In the national election in 1884 both parties recognized, in their 
platforms, civil-service reform. The Republican declaration was 
straightforward and explicit; that of the Democrats, evasive and mean¬ 
ingless. Here are the two: 

[From the Republican platform.] 

Reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under Republican adminis¬ 
tration, should be completed by the further extension of the reform system, al¬ 
ready established by law, to all the grades of thte service to which it is applica¬ 
ble. The sj)irit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all executive 
appointments, and all laws at variance with the objects of existing reform leg¬ 
islation should be repealed to the end that the dangers of free itistitutions which 
lurk in the power of "official patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided, 

[From the Democratic platform.] 

We favor honest civil-service reform. 

But as the canvass progressed it was seen that a considerable num¬ 
ber of men, who had previously affiliated with the Republican party, 
were bent upon opposing its candidate, and it gradually became appa¬ 
rent that these men were not only opposing Mr. Blaine and urging their 
friends to oppose him but looking about for reasons that would justify 
them in supporting his opponent, Mr. Cleveland. 

The Democratic candidate was not slow to recognize this, and in his 
letter of acceptance, dated August 18, 1884, he takes occasion to express 
his belief that the misuse of patronage in the selection of officials who 
make it their business to interlere improperly in elections should be 
prevented, even at the expense of an amendment to the Constitution 
disqualilying the President for re-election. I quote from the letter: 

When we consider the patronage of this greatoffice, the allurements of power, 
the to retain public placc.s once gained, and, more than all, the 

availability a parly finds in an incumbent when a horde oflice-bolder.® with 
a zeal born of benefit received and foetered by the hope of favors yet to come 
stand ready to aid with money and traine<l political .service, we recognize in the 
eligibility ol the Preshleat for re-election a most serious danger to that calm, 
deliberate, and intelligent political action which must characterize a govern¬ 
ment by the people. 

Warming to his subject, Governor Cleveland, a little further on in the 
same letter, announced bis views as follows: 

The people pay the wages of the public eniployi^a, and they are entitled to tho 
fair and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the 
duty of those intrusted with the management of these affairs to see that such 
public service is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in 
Government employment should dei)end upon their ascertained fitness and the 
value of their work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed to <lo 
questionable party service. The interests of the people will be better protected; 
the estimate of public labor and duty will be immensely improved ; public em¬ 
ployment will be open to all who can demonstrate their fitness to enter it. The 
unseemly scramble for place under the Government, with the consequent im¬ 
portunity which embitters official life, will cea.se, and the public departments 
will not be filled with those who conceive it to be their first duty to aid the 
jmrty to which they owe their places instead of rendering patient and honest 
return to the people. 

These utterances are clear and distinct, and may be presumed to have 
had their effect. The setjeders from the Ifepublicnn party voted the 
Democratic ticket, and in the close Wtaten their nu5al)ers were suffi¬ 
cient to decide the result, and Governor Cleveland was elected Presi¬ 
dent. If anybody douLts the moving consideration which impelled 


9 


this seceding vote in the direction of the Democratic candidate, he has 
only to read the declarations of the leaders in the civil-service-reform 
movement made many times since the election. 

I am now approaching, Mr. President, the consideration of the course 
of President Cleveland’s administration, elected upon the statements 
and pledges which 1 have j ust quoted. These statements and pledges, in 
connection with subsequent utterances made by the President, are the 
foundation for the declaration of Mr. George Wiliiam Curtis in his ad¬ 
dress to the annual meeting of the National Civil Service Relbrm League, 
held at Newport August 3, 1880, that “President Cleveland is identi¬ 
fied in the public mind with the cause of reform.” 

Subsequent to the election, and previous to his inauguration, on De¬ 
cember 25, 1884, Mr. Cleveland, in a letter to Hon. George William 
Curtis, among other things, enunciates the following propositions as 
covering his views: 

I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer, that many of our citizens 
fear that the recent party change in tlie national Executive may demonstrate 
that the abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I 
know that they are deeply rooted and that the spoils system has been 8up}»osed 
to be intimately related to success in the maintenance of party organization, 
and I am not sure that all those Avho profess to be the friends of this reform will 
stand firmly among its adv'ocates when they find'it obstructing their way to 
patronage and place. But fully appreciating the trust committed to my charge, 
no such consideration snail cause a relaxation on my part of an earnest effort 
to enforce this law. 

If J were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely proper 
to remind them that, though the comiugadministration is to be Democratic, adue 
regard for the people’s interest docs iu)t permit faithful party work to be always 
rewarded ai)i:ointment to office; and to say to them that while Democrats 
may expect all proper consideration, selections for office, not embraced within 
the civil-service rules, will be based upon suflicient inquiry as to titness, insti¬ 
tuted by those charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity 
or self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for appointment. 

In hisinaugural address delivered March 4, 1885, the President makes 
the following declarations of his views as to reform: 

The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the 
application of business principles to public aflairs. As a means to this end, 
civil-service reform should be in good faith irulorsed. Our citizens have the 
right to protection from the incomi>etency of public employes who hold their 
places solely as the reward of partisan service, and trom the corrupting influence 
of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; 
and tho.se who worthily seek employment have the right to insist that merit 
and competency shal 1 be recognized instead of party subserviency or the sur¬ 
render of honest political belief. 

Rearchiug through the President’s first annual message to Congress, 
delivered I)ecember 8, 1885, one finds, just before its conclusion, the 
following reform sentences: 

I am inclined to think that there is no sentiment more general in the minds 
of the people of our country than a conviction of the corrcctne.s.'^ of the princi¬ 
ple upon which the law enforcing civil-service reiorm is based. 

Experience in its administration will probably suggest amendment of the 
methods of its execution, but T venture to hope that we .shall never again be re¬ 
mitted to the system wliich distributes public positions p\irely as rewards for 
partisan service. Doubts may well be entertained whether our Government 
could survive the strain of a continuation of this system, which upon every 
change of administration inspires an immense army of claimants for office to lay 
siege to the patronage of the Government, engrossing the time of pulilic oflicer.s 
with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disai)point- 
ment, and filling the air with the tumult of their disct)ntent. 

The allurements of an immense number of offices and places exhibited to the 
voters of the land, and the prorai.se of their bestowal in recognition of parti.san 
activity, debauch the suff rage and rob political action of its thoughtful and <le- 
liberative character. The evil would increase with tlie multiplication of offices 
consequent upon our extension, and the mania for office-holding, gro\ving from 
its indulgence, would pervade our population so generally that patriotic pur¬ 
pose, the support of principle, the desire for the public good, and solicitude for 


10 


the nation’s welfare would be nearly banished from the activity of our party 
contests and cause them to desrenerate into ignoble, selfish, and disgraceful 
struggles for the possession of office and public place. 

Civil-service reform enforced by law came none too soon to check the progress 
of demoralization. 

One of its effects, not enough regarded, is the freedom it brings to the politi¬ 
cal action of those conservative and sober men who, in fear of the confusion and 
risk attending an arbitrary and sudden change in all the public offices with a 
change of party rule, cast their ballots against such a change. 

Previous to this, on September 11, 1835, in his letter accepting the 
resignation of Mr. Eaton, the Civil Service Commissioner, the President 
took occasion to say; 

I believe In civil-service reform and its application in the most practicable 
form attainable, among other reasons because it opens the door for the rich and 
the poor alike to a participation in public place-holding. 

You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given to the 
present Administration in its efforts to preserve and advance this reform by a 
party restored to power after an exclusion for many years from participation in 
in<- places attached to the public service, confronted with a new system preclud¬ 
ing the r.distribution of such places in its interest, called upon to surrender 
advantages which a perverted partisanship had taught the American people 
belonged to success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an 
emergency, that their rights In the conduct of this reform had not been scrupu¬ 
lously regarded, should receive due acknowledgment, and should confirm our 
belief that there is a sentiment among the people better than a desire to hold 
office, and a patriotic impulse upon w'hich may safely rest the integrity of our 
institutions and the strength and perpetuity of our Government. 

In a personal interview published in the Boston Herald January 
30, 1885, the President makes the following epigrammatic utterances: 
“No, I have tried to be true to my own pledges and the pledges of 
my party. We both promised to divorce the offices of the country from 
being used for party service. I have held to my promise, and I mean 
to hold to it.” Also the following: “What I understand by civil-serv¬ 
ice reform, as I am carrying it out, is that the office-holders shall be 
divorced Irom politics while they fill their positions under this Govern¬ 
ment. That rule I have meant to stand by.” 

Here, Mr. President, we have an administration pledged as strongly 
as words can pledge it to the cause of civil-service reform. It was an 
administration elected, as Mr. Curtis has said, because of such pledges 
and the faith that was based upon them. To the vision of the reformer 
a brighter and better day was dawning in American politics. Appoint¬ 
ments to office were to be made on the Jeffersonian plan of fitness and 
character. There were to be no more sweeping removals. Nobody 
was to behold the spectacle of a horde of hungry office-seekers besieg¬ 
ing the capital upon a change of administration. The afl’airs of tho 
Government were to be conducted upon business principles. The of¬ 
fice-holders were to be “ the servants of the people and not their mas¬ 
ters. ” They were to be “divorced from politics.” They were not to 
seek to control conventions and elections. We were to have a “ pure, 
non-partisan civil service.” 

Let us now see, Mr. President, how these high-sounding pledges have 
been kept. Mr. Curtis declares that they attracted a sufficient number 
of independent voters to the standard of the Democratic party to elect 
its President. If this be so it is worth the while to bring to the minds 
of these “independent” men and to the attention of the country the 
real condition of affairs since the Democratic party, after gaining pos¬ 
session of the Government through the pledges of its candidate, came 
into full power. 

Before going to this, Mr. President, I wish it distinctly understood 
that in any arraignment which I may make of the present Administra- 


11 


tion toiicbing its appointments and the participation of civil officers of 
the Government under it in politics I am uttering no complaint in the 
interests of Republicans who have been removed from Federal offices. 
These men have made no complaint, and will make none. In common 
with other Senators upon this side of the Chamber, I have made no at¬ 
tempt to retain them in office. Indeed, Mr. President, notwithstand¬ 
ing the platform of the Democratic party and the declarations and 
pledges of its candidate, I have never expected much less than a clean 
sweep at the hands of the Democratic party; for if there is anything 
that the leaders of that party and its masses believe in and mean to 
maintain it is the doctrine that “ to the victors belong the spoils;” 
and, Mr. President, it was not only that Mr. Cleveland was elected Presi¬ 
dent in November, 1884; but what was of much more importance to the 
country, the Democratic party, which Mr. Curtis declared was both 
‘‘hungry and thirsty for office,” was set up in power. 

The man is blind who does not see to-day that the spirit of that 
party upon the question of the distribution of the ‘‘spoils ” is as pow¬ 
erful, as controlling, as dominant as it ever was in the days of Polk 
or Pierce or Buchanan. This is what, as we have all seen, has brought 
the President and party leaders together. This is what has made Sen¬ 
ators who two years ago denounced and derided the President be* 
cause of his “impracticable civil-service reform theories” his alvo- 
cates and apostles to-day. It is not that they have yielded, but that 
he has yielded. 

Whatever may have been the President’s intention in the beginning, 
however honestly he may have intended to carry out his many decla¬ 
rations for reform, the pressure from his party has been too great; the 
spoilsmen have captured the Administration, and now their talk is of 
nothing but the renomination and re-election of the President. 

If the fond dream ever possessed the mind of the civil-service re¬ 
former that under President Cleveland the Democratic party was to 
be transformed into a civil-service-reform party, that reformer has seen 
the baseless fabric of his dream vanish in a rude awakening. 

I invite the attention ofthese gentlemen to the following table, which 
was carefully made up to .Tune 11, 1887, more than six months airo, 
from figures furnished by the Department, as showing how sweeping 
had been the change in all of the departments of the Government up 
to that date: 


Offices. 

Places filled 
by Cleve¬ 
land. 

Whole 
number of 
places. 

"Prpsifle.ntial postmasters testimatedt. 

2,000 

40,000 

32 

2,359 

p'ourth-class postmasters (estimated). 

52; 609 
33 

Koreiori ministers . 

Secretaries of lejjation... 

16 

21 

Consuls... 

138 

219 

Collectors of customs. 

100 

111 

Surveyors of customs. 

S3 

a3 

N^aval officers of customs.... 

6 

6 

Appraisers, all grades. 

34 

36 

Siiperintenflents of mints and assavers. 

11 

13 

Assistant treasurers at siihtreasuries. 

9 

9 

Clolleetors of internal revenue.,... 

84 

85 

T sf . 

8 

11 

TUst.rict attornevs. 

65 

70 

ATarslials ... 

64 

70 

T'e.rritoria.l judges... ... 

22 

30 

Territorial governors. 

9 

9 

























12 


Oflices. 

Places filled 
by Cleve¬ 
land. 

Whole 
number of 
places. 

Pension agents. 

16 

18 

Survevors-general. 

16 

16 

IjOcal land officers. 

190 

224 

Indian inspectors and special agents. 

9 

10 

InVlian agents.. . 

51 

59 

Special agents, General band Office. 

79 

83 




Total.1. 

42,992 

56,134 



Mr. SAULSBURY. Allow me to ask whether those changes were 
all removals? 

Mr. HALE. The Senator will take notice that I am speaking of 
changes. I am coming afterwards to speak of the method of the 
changes. 

At the time to which this table comes the present Administration 
had been a little more than two years in power. 

The best comment, Mr. President, upon this remarkable table that 
I can make is to quote the editorial headings of a leading Democratic 
newspaper, when it exultingly published this sweeping list. Here 
they are: “The civil service;” “Practical exclusion of Republicans 
from employment under the National Government;” “Only a small 
class of public servants protected by the Pendleton act;” The changes 
effected with as little derangement of business as possible;” “Spoils¬ 
men not satisfied.” 

Not “satisfied,” Mr. President, till they should have secured pos¬ 
session of the small fraction of offices remaining in Republican hands 
in June last. Since that time a large portion of the places represented 
by this small fraction have been filled by Democrats, and I hope in a 
few days to have the figures which will show how almost complete 
and exhaustive have been the changes. 

' This showing, Mr. President, is most amazing. I was not aware of 
the extent of the change till I looked up the figures; the country has 
not known or appreciated it. Certain incidents connected with these 
changes are startling. It can not be said in defense of the President 
and his party that in most cases the changes were made because of the 
expiration of the terms of the incumbents or of their resignations. In 
a very great majority of all these cases, probably nineteen-twentieths 
of all, the civil officers removed held under no fixed tenure of office, 
being removable at the pleasure of the President. So far as resigna¬ 
tions go, they have been comparatively few, and, in nine cases out of 
ten, have been extorted under the threat of removal. 

In the great bureau of the internal revenue, out of eighty-five collec¬ 
tors eighty-four had beenremovedon June 11, and the other, I believe, 
has gone since. Not one of these held under a fixed term of office which 
had expired. The same is true of that large number of officials who 
are employed in the Indian service as inspectors, in the Land Office, in 
the Pension Office, in the mints, and in the judiciary of the Territories. 

It is trueof thatgreatarmy of small officials who are known as fourth- 
class postmasters; and this class and its treatment deserve some special 
comment. This class includes the postmasters in the smaller towns 
and villages and cross-roads throughout all the States and Territories. 
They represent, more than any other class, the men whose official du- 















13 


lies bring them into direct relation and communication with the people. 
They are, in most cases, poorly paid, and do their own work. Scarcely 
one of these places can be called a sinecure, and yet such has been the 
greed of the lociil Democratic politician for some kind of olhoethat, out 
of fifty-two thousand six hundred and nine places in this class, forty 
thousand, as near as the estimate can be made, or as the Postmaster- 
General, in his report, makes it between thirty-six and thirty-seven 
thousand, had been removed up to the early part of last June. I do 
not believe to-day, Mr. President, that ten thousand of the old incumb¬ 
ents in this class remain in office. What is more to the point, Ido not 
believe that out of those that are left three thousand are Republicans, 
or that, from all those that have been newly appointed, one hundred 
are Republicans. The Nasbys and the Bascoms and the Gavits of the 
Democratic party have been put into these places by this civil-service- 
reform administration. 

No man can .say, out of this vast mass of patronage, how many local 
^Democratic strikers, who have come to Washington seeking high places 
in the Government and have gradually beheld their hopes fading, have 
seen their application strained down from one grade to another till at 
last they have rested content as a fourth-class Democratic reform post¬ 
master in a grocery in some country corner. 

I commend this list to the special attention of the gentlemen of the 
civil-service-reform associations who still cling to the fond hope that 
Mr. Cleveland is a reform President. Not one of these removals could 
have taken place if he had forbidden it. Indeed, between the adjourn¬ 
ment of Congress and his departure for the Adirondack Mountains the 
President appointed two hundred and fifty three postmasters, of whom 
but one was appointed to succeed himself and ninety-one were appointed 
to succeed postmastei's who were removed. 

The difference betw’eea word and deed is clearly shown in the case 
of Secretary Lamar, who took occasion in April last to commend John 
C. Calhoun for his opposition to the spoils system, and to congratulate 
himself upon belonging to an Administration that w'as engaged in carry¬ 
ing out the policy that Calhoun advocated. 

The stern facts are that in the service over which Mr. Lamar has pre¬ 
sided every Territorial governor has been removed; sixteen out of 
eighteen pension agents; every single surveyor-general; four-fifths of 
the local laud officers; nine-tenths of the inspectors and special agents 
of the Indian service; fifty-one out of fifty-nine Indian agents; seventy 
nine out of eighty-three special agents of the General Laud Office, and 
more than two-thirds of the special examiners of the Pension Office. 
But Secretary Lamar to-day stands on record as against the spoils sys¬ 
tem, and takes high rank as a reformer. 

If I were not consuming too much time, Mr. President, I could select 
from the figures which are before me other Departments of the Govern¬ 
ment, not covered by the table which I have presented, showing this 
conquering march of the Democratic party in pursuit of the offices. 

In all the Departments in Washington are found able and honest 
men, who have given their lives to the service of the Government. 
They have begun as clerks in the lower grades and have been steadily 
promoted until they have at last reached the highest places to which 
they may reasonably aspire. They were found, when the reform Dem¬ 
ocratic administration came into power, as chief clerks and chiefs of 
divisions. They made the eyes and ears of the Departments, and, one 
would suppose, should be considered as almost indispensable. In the 
Treasury Department there are seventy-nine clfief clerks and chiefs of 


14 


divisions, and up to June, 1887, sixty-six of these seventy-nine had been 
changed. In not more than a half a dozen cases the person appointed 
was a promoted clerk. The introduction into this force was almost 
entirely from the outside. Every deputy auditor, deputy comptroller, 
and deputy commissioner of internal revenue has been changed. In 
many cases chiefs of divisions have been reduced in grade, and new men, 
from the outside world, of the Democratic party, have been appointed. 
In more than one case the head of a division has been reduced to a 
lower clerkship and the Democratic politician has been appointed in 
his place, and the old incumbent, in his reduced grade and at his re¬ 
duced pay, is performing all his old work, and the new incumbent does 
practically nothing. But this is civil-service reform. 

Mr. President, there is but one thing about this showing that can be 
offensive to my Iriends on the other side of the Chamber whose constit¬ 
uents are following them in frantic pursuit for the offices. There are 
still here and there a few places worth the holding remaining in the 
hands of Republicans who, instead of “fixing conventions” and mus¬ 
tering the voters at the polls, are attending to the duties of their office; 
but these cases I must remind my friends are few and all the while be¬ 
coming less and less. 

My friend from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] has seen to it that out of thirty- 
nine Presidential post-offices in his State but one holds over. I am not 
sure that he, perhaps the “late postmaster” at Somerset, has not gone. 

My brilliant friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest], in association with his 
indefatigable colleague [Mr. Cockrell], has looked to it that out of 
seventy-nine Presidential post-offices in his State seventy-five were 
changed. Either of these Senators can tell better than I whether since 
October 28, to which time my figures come down, either of the other 
four has been allowed to stay. 

The Senator from Maryland [Mr. Gorman], who marshals his party in 
the national elections, has been a little more forbearing in his treatment 
of the post-offices, for, in late October, I find that four of these places re¬ 
mained unchanged. Possibly this may have been in view of the com¬ 
ing election; since when reform may have exhausted itself by com- 
’pleting the sweep. But he has looked more carefully after the Federal 
offices under the Secretary of the Treasury, as every Presidential ap¬ 
pointment, from collectors of the port down to local appraisers, has 
been changed with the exception of the collector of customs at An¬ 
napolis. 

My friend from North Carolina [Mr. Ransom], who will have all the 
Presidential postmasters in his State, as I hope, in his Senatorial race 
next year, has quietly proceeded to have every one of them changed, at 
which none of us, of late, have heard any grumblings from his colleague 
[Mr. Vance] as to the impracticable theories of the Administration. 

South Carolina, out of eighteen Presidential post-offices, had in Oc¬ 
tober but one holding over, and all of the customs and internal-revenue 
officers in that State are new. 

Louisiana has twelve Presidential post-offices, all being new ap¬ 
pointees. 

Indiana, under the charge of the eloquent Democratic Senator from 
that State [Mr. Voorhees], has not been forgotten, and out of eighty- 
seven Presidential post-offices only those at Crown Point, Goshen, and 
Union City remained in October unchanged. 

The Florida Senators must be surprised to learn that one Republi¬ 
can postmaster was left at Eustis, out of seventeen Presidential post- 
ofiices. I cor Amend this accidental escape to their immediate attention. 


15 


How it has happened that in Delaware, with but six Presidential 
post-offices, a Republican postmaster still holds at Newark is an 
anomalous condition yet to be explained. 

In the Northern States,where there are no Democratic Senators and 
but few Representatives in the other branch of Congress, somebody has 
been equally effective in the cause of reform. 

Colorado.has twenty-eight Presidential post-offices, only two of which 
remained unchanged in October. 

Iowa has one hundred and twenty-four Presidential post-offices, and 
of these seven remained unchanged. 

Kansas has one hundred and ten Presidential post-offices, and out of 
these the postmasters at Augusta, Cawker City, Frankfort, Hays City, 
Humboldt, and Lindsborg have escaped the ax. 

In my own Shite, out of thirty Presidential post-offices, five remained 
unchanged at the date already given. 

In Massachusetts the Democratic party has maintained an indifferent, 
and indeed sullen, attitude toward the Administration, because of the 
fact that out of one hundred and twenty-six Presidential post-offices 
twenty-three, up to the date of the last election, remained in the hands 
of Republicans. 

In Michigan, out of one hundred and six Presidential post-offices, four¬ 
teen remain. 

In Minnesota, out of fifty-one six, remain. 

In Nebraska, out of seventy, six remain. 

In New Hampshire two Republicans, out of thirty-two Presidential 
post-offices, remain as spared monuments of mercy. 

In New York, out of two hundred and nineteen Presidential post- 
offices, forty-seven remain in Republican hands, or did previous to the 
last election. 

This is not so bad a showing, after all, in the cause of reform, and for 
the further satisfaction of my friends upon the other side of the Cham¬ 
ber, and for the encouragement of the average Democratic politician in 
the country, I am glad to be able to say that the Administration has lost 
no vigor in this work of removal. Indeed, wherever an examination has 
been made, showing the rate of changes from month to month, it has 
been discovered that although the number of removals to be made is 
less the percentage of change is constantly increasing. 

The Civil Service Record, of Boston, a good authority upon this sub¬ 
ject, not long ago investigated the unclaasified service in the Interior 
Department, and reports the rapidity with which the changes have been 
made, as follows: “On October 1, 1886, the percentage of changes was 
71; on .January 1, 1887, the percentage was 78^; on July 1, 1887, the 
percentage was 90.” 

At this rate it can be easily seen that the remaining small percent¬ 
age will soon be removed. The cry of ‘'Kill, kill,” as in the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew’s day, grows louder as the number of victims in¬ 
creases. 

Mr. GRAY. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question? 

Mr. HALE. Certainly. 

Mr. GRAY. I ask whether in the statement as to Presidential post- 
offices the Senator allows for the number of new appointees by reason 
of the expiration of term ? I know that in my own State, where there • 
are but a small number of Presidential post-offices, every one of the 
changes was made to fill a vacancy caused by the expiration of the term 
of office. 

Mr. HALE. There are tables which show that. Every Senator can 


16 ' 

see for himself, as to Presidential post-offices running for four years of 
time as their term of office, that in two years of an administration, upon 
the doctrine of averages, the term of one-half might expire. I have 
been giving the record in these States where, instead of one-half of the 
number of postmasters being changed, the proportion ranges from five- 
sixths to nineteen-twentieths, or to a complete change, so that what¬ 
ever may be the fact in Delaware—and that I did not comment on— 
the Senator himself must see that removals accelerate these changes 
beyond ivhat would naturally occur on the doctrine of averages. 

Mr. GRAY. I do not understand that the Senator insists that the 
President has done wrong in filling post-offices which became vacant 
by the expiration of term of the incumbent. 

Mr. HALE. I have said before that I did not claim that all of 
these changes had been by removals; but a significant fact attending the 
pledges and promises of this civil-service-reform Administration is that 
as the terms have expired not one in five hundred of the old incumbents 
has been reappointed. It goes without saying, and nobody raises a 
question, that their successors will always be Democrats, notwithstand¬ 
ing the President has said that he w ill not encourage a horde of office- 
seekers to besiege the Departments of the Government and his door for 
rewards for partisan work, 

I have just given the instance, which the Senator did not hear, that 
in the little space of time between the adjournment of Congress and the 
Presidential visit to the Adirondack Mountains, out of two hundred and 
fifty-tliree Presiciential appointments that were made ninety-one were 
to fill offices vacated by removals, and only one of a man to succeed 
himself. 

Mr. GRAY. What officers were they ? 

Mr. HALE. Postmasters. 

Let us now, Mr. President, turn to the other side of this subject of 
reform in the civil service, that which relates to the offensive partici¬ 
pation of office-holders in politics. That this should not be permitted 
in any well-regulated civil service goes without saying. The President 
saw this clearly, and his utterances in relation to it are as clear and 
distinct as they were upon appointments and removals. 

I have already quoted from his letter of acceptance, in which he 
deprecated the existence of ‘‘a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born 
of benefit received, and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, who 
stand ready to aid with money and trained political services ” the party 
to which they belong. And we have seen lurther his declarations, after 
assuming his high office, of the things which he believed to constitute 
a true civil-service reform, namely: 

The separation of the offices from politics, the non-participation of office-hoid- 
ers in elections and conventions. 

During the first year of the President’s administration, and as the 
time approached for the campaign which preceded the State and Con¬ 
gressional elections in 1886, it w’as discovered that things were going 
on in the Democratic party very much after its old I'ashiou. The men in 
office were “manipulating conventions,” “fixing nominations,” and 
taking upon themselves the conduct of the campaign generally. So ap¬ 
parent was this in Maryland, in Indiana, in Kentucky, in New York, 
in Pennsylvania, and in other contested States, that a voice of com¬ 
plaint was heard, not from the Democrats, who desired this condition of 
things, nor from the Republicans, who expected it, but from the “In¬ 
dependents,” who had contributed to the President’s election, and who 
now were fain to admit that matters were not going to suit them. 


17 


The President was ready, as usual, with letters of assurances and with 
proclamations tending to appease the discontent of his “ Independent ” 
allies. 

The statute which I have recited in the resolution upon which I am 
speaking is definitive and explicit in its terms, and its passage by a Re¬ 
publican Congress and approval by a Republican President, as I have 
said, was followed by a complete change in the organization of the 
party, all men holding Federal office disappearing from its committees 
and staff of political workers. 

On the 14th day of July, 1886, the President issued his famous or¬ 
der from the Executive Mansion in Washington, “To the heads ot the 
Departments in the service of the General Government.” As this whole 
proclamation has been read from the desk of the Secretary, I will not 
here take up the time of the Senate by repeating it. In it the Presi¬ 
dent declares that his purpose is “to warn all subordinates in the sev¬ 
eral Departments and all office-holders under the General Government, 
against the use of their official positions in attempts to control political 
movements in their localities.” In it he declares that “office-holders 
are the agents of the people—not their masters.” In it he warns Fed¬ 
eral officials against “offending, by a display of obtrusive partisanship, 
their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials.” In 
it he declares that “they have no right as office-holders to dictate the 
politi(;al action of their party associates.” In it he declares that the 
duty of the office-holder to his party is not “increased to pernicious 
activity by office-holding. ” 

These plain declarations of the President form a policy under which, 
if properly followed, the civil service of the country would indeed be 
divorced from politics. The Independents felt this and, taking new 
courage from the President’s declarations, and forgetting how far the 
performance had fallen short of his promises in appointments and re¬ 
movals, still clung, in many cases, to the Democratic organization. 

The Civil Service Commissioners, or at least two of them, interpreted 
the statute in accordance with the President’s instruction, and this 
added weight to the Executive direction. But the leaders and the 
masses of the Democratic party felt by this time that they clearly un¬ 
derstood the situation, and at this point begins to be clearly marked 
the change of tone among these leaders in their comments upon the 
President. They realized fully that in view of coming elections the 
party must ride two horses; that the President was to steadily main¬ 
tain in all his public declarations the cause of civil-service reform, with 
the view of retaining the support of the Independents; but that, as in 
the case of appointments and removals, no real obstruction was to be 
placed in the way of any and every office-holder participating, when¬ 
ever he chose, in caucuses and conventions and in the elections which 
followed. 

Whether the advantages to be derived from this double presentation 
first became clearly discernible to the President’s eye or to the eyes of 
his party leaders is not a matter of importance. The beauties of the 
situation, to a party which had straddled and presented two fronts upon 
almost every great question before the people, were at once apparent, 
and the President and his party, while speaking in different voices, were 
at once reconciled and came to bed together. 

The conventions in the different States and in the Congressional dis¬ 
tricts at once fell under the old management, and were conducted as in 
the palmy days of Democracy, previous to the war. 

HALE -2 



18 


In the Indiana election, in November, 1886, the participation of Federal 
office-holders in the primaries and subsequently in the election raised a 
scandal of which papers in that State, at the time and afterwards, were 
full. In the closely-contested districts these men left their business and 
their homes and devoted themselves to securing the nomination and 
election of the members to whom they had owed their appointments. 
In the Matson district, in the Holman district, and especially in the 
Fort Wayne district the intrusion of Federal ofl^e-holders into every 
stage of the canvass previous to the nominating conventions and elec¬ 
tions was so offensive that honest people revolted and defeated the 
Democratic candidate. Whoever will read the testimony offered in the 
Lowry-White contested-election case will find ample proof of this state¬ 
ment. 

When 1887 came round the President’s declarations and proclamations 
were treated as waste-paper, and the President himself seems by this 
time to have fallen into such harmony with the spirit of his party that 
he not only acquiesced in this wholesale disregard of his previously ex¬ 
pressed sentiments and directions, but himself joined in the movement. 
His most intimate friends, both in and out of office, took charge of the 
conduct of conventions and elections in the year which was considered 
as having so close a bearing in its results upon the great coming battle 
of 1888. 

At the Saratoga meeting of the Democratic State committee of New 
York, when the preliminaries of what then looked like the dawning 
contest between the national Administration and the State administra¬ 
tion were to be settled, Deputy Collector John A. Mason and Second 
Auditor William F. Creed, of the New York custom-house, were most 
prominent and active. 

At the Pennsylvania State convention more than forty of the Fed¬ 
eral officials of that State appeared to marshal the forces of the admin¬ 
istration. The names of some of these have been furnished me as taken 
from a Democratic newspaper : E. J. Bigler, collector of internal reve¬ 
nue; D. O. Barr, surveyor of the port of Pittsburgh; McVeyand Ryan, 
special Treasury agents; Fletcher, chief clerk in a bureau of the Navy 
Department; Glozier, hull inspector; Guss, oleomargarine inspector; 
Chester and Warren and Bancroft, from the Philadelphia mint, and many 
others. In Baltimore the naval officer, the appointment clerk, Higgins, 
and Indian Inspector Thomas, Customs Agent Mahon, Postmaster Brown 
and his assistant. United States marshal and deputies, deputy collector 
of internal revenue, and a host of clerks, inspectors, and janitors mo¬ 
nopolized the direction of the entire campaign. 

I might go on and give like instances in other States, but I leave 
that to be more fully brought out by the committee which I hope will 
take this matter in charge. 

Mr. HAWLEY. May I make an inquiry? 

Mr. HALE. Certainly. 

Mr. HAWLEY. Is the Senator certain that these men have not been 
indignantly and virtuously removed? 

Mr. HALE. Not only have I yet to learn of a removal for such ac¬ 
tion, but I have yet to learn of any censure being visited upon one of 
these men. I do not know of a case where the President has put his 
strong hand upon these men and made it seen that he meant to perform 
what he had promised. In fact, so gross was the violation of every 
principle of reform and of the President’s directions and pledges that 
even the Evening Post declared that “this playing fast and loose with 
orders and promises, which the President js now permitting among 


19 


those around him, will be used in the campaign with terrible effect.’’ 
But the Presideut has not hesitated to deal deadly blows at reform 
with Ilia own hand. A remarkable manifestation of the desire of the 
people for a practical reform in the selection of important officers was 
shown in the city of New York previous to the last election. Public 
suspicion had for along time rested upon officials in the municipal gov¬ 
ernment, and had at last demanded and secured an investigation, which 
disclosed the most corrupt and shocking practices on the part of mu¬ 
nicipal officials, implicating them and well-known parties outside in 
extensive schemes involving corruption and bribery. 

Public indignation, expressed through almost the entire press of New 
York, was aroused, the intervention of the courts was sought, and from 
time to time trials of the accused had proceeded in some cases to con¬ 
viction of the criminals. The work was by no means completed, and as 
the time for the election of a district attorney who should represent the 
State and the public in the conduct of these trials came near a pro¬ 
nounced and general movement grew up in favor of the selection of Mr. 
Delaney Nicoll, an able and brilliant young Democratic lawyer, who had 
found thrown upon him, as an assistant in the district attorney’s office, 
the burden of largely managing and conducting the hitherto successful 
prosecution of these cases. 

Nobody claimed that the movement for Mr. Nicoll had its origin in 
any party preference. It came from the people, and the demand was 
taken up by the newspapers. With few exceptions the Republican, Dem¬ 
ocratic, and independent press demanded the nomination and election 
of Mr. Nicoll in the interest of reform and good government. He was 
nominated by difterent independent organizations, indorsed by all of 
the civil-service-reform associations and newspapers, and, although a 
Democrat, accepted generally by the Republicans. 

Here was aplain, spontaneous, earnest, honest movement on the part 
of the people in the direction of reform. It would seem to have been 
political wit on the part of the Democratic managers in New York City 
to have accepted this movement and to have joined in the election of a 
man who had always been a Democrat, but whose character and serv¬ 
ices were so high that good men demanded generally that he should 
be retained in the public service. But, as I have said, long before this 
the Democratic leaders had found that in the practical management of 
politics they were in the saddle, and the nominating conventions of the 
two branches of the New York Democracy joined in rejecting Mr. Nicoll 
and in setting up as his opponent an old-fashioned, worn, bruised, and 
battered New York City politician, whose personal character was not 
high, and who had been a crony of and a beneficiary at the hands of 
Tweed in the worst days of New York City’s corruptions. 

The business men of New York, the Independents, the Reformers, 
and Republicans generally accepted the issue, and a contest almost un¬ 
equaled in intensity and bitterness ensued. Here, Senators, was the 
opportunity for the President not only to say but to do something for 
reform.' If, in accordance with his declarations in favor of non-inter¬ 
ference of Federal office-holders in elections, he had, including himself 
as the head of all Federal official life, determined to keep aloof from 
the contest, he still might in many ways have breathed expressions giv¬ 
ing aid and comfort to the men in New York City who were fighting 
against thieves and robbers and bribe-takers and bribe-givers in the in¬ 
terest of good government. All of the so-called reform element in New 
York City that had hitherto adhered to the President looked to him for 
some such expression. How bitterly were they disappointed! The Pres- 


20 


ident was now completely in the hands of the party leaders in New York, 
whose stern rule had always been to support regular nominations and 
to shoot down bolters and deserters. 

While the contest was at its thickest, aud men everywhere through¬ 
out the country turned their eyes expectantly upon the result, and 
when the battle had become one of national importance, and when the 
issues were, seemingly, well nigh evenly balanced, a great Tammany 
Hall ratification meeting was held in the interest of Mr. Fellows, the 
Tammany Hall and County Democratic candidate for district attorney 
in opposition to Mr. Nicoll. I have before me a full report of the pro¬ 
ceedings of this meeting and of the parties who participated therein. 
Their names have not been found upon the lists of any civil-service- 
reform association heretofore made known to the public. General John 
Cochrane called the meeting to order. Congressman S. S. Cox pre¬ 
sided. State Senator Raines, of Monroe, was followed by the candidate, 
Colonel Fellows, and Hon. Charles A. Dana, editor of The Sun. 
Speeches were also made by George Blair and Congressman William 
McAdoo, of New Jersey. The following letter was read: 

It will be impossible for me to comply with your courteous invitation to meet 
with those who propose to ratify to-morrow evening the nomination of the 
united Democracy. With a hearty wish that every candidate on your excellent 
ticket may be triumphantly elected, 

I am, yours, very truly, 

GROVER CLEVELAND. 


Mr. VEST. I beg the Senator’s pardon. 

The PRESIDENT j^ro tempore. Does the Senator from IMaine yield 
to the Senator firom Missouri? 

Mr. HALE. I wish he would let me finish. 

Mr. A^EST. Certainly. 

Mr. HALE. However, I will yield to the Senator. 

Mr. VEST. I did not propose to say a word, but the Senator has 
attacked a gentleman with whom my personal and political relations 
are such that I should esteem myself a dastard if I did not say what I 
propose to say now. 

The Senator has spoken of Col. John R. Fellows as an old New 
York politician with a character none too high, to quote his own lan¬ 
guage, and he has not inti mated, but has charged, in so many words, that 
his candidacy was in the interest of corrupt men and corrupt objects in 
the city of New York. 

Now, Mr. President, I want to ask that Senator—for this surpasses 
the bounds of political debate and enters upon that of personal char¬ 
acter—I want to ask him here, publicly, if Mr. Nicoll, the opponent 
of Colonel Fellows, whom he has eulogized here to-day as the repre¬ 
sentative of reform and honesty, did not in the heat of that contest ad¬ 
dress a letter to Colonel Fellows, and authorize its publication in all the 
newspapers of New York City, in which he stated that he had been 
associated with Colonel Fellows in the prosecution of Sharp and the 
other men who were alleged to be criminals, and that as a gentleman 
he took that occasion to say publicly that no man at the New York 
bar stood higher than Col. John R. Fellows, and that he took that 
occasion to testify that in those prosecutions Colonel Fellows had done 
all that could be done by any man of the same ability? Yet, in the 
face of that letter. Colonel Fellows is denounced here to-day as a par¬ 
ticipant in the criminal intents of those men, some of whom are fugi¬ 
tives from justice, and others are in the State penitentiary. 

Mr. HALE. I have no knowledge personally of either of the candi¬ 
dates in that most important contest. 


21 


Mr. VEST. I ask if that letter was not published? If not, I will 
hjive it read in the Senate. . 

Mr. HALE. I have no doubt whatever about the letter; there were 
many incidents in that campaign upon one side and the other. One 
thing came out clearly, and that was that whatever personal attach¬ 
ment might have been felt for the Tammany and County Democracy 
candidate on the part of friends who had known him in late years and 
in earlier yearn, he had been connected by close personal ties and had 
been the beneficiary of contributions at the hands of Tweed in the time 
which I have before characterized as the worst of New York’s corrupt 
days; that he was old in political service; that, as I have said, his char¬ 
acter stood none too high. I repeat that the impression which I re¬ 
ceived from reading the papers upon both sides at that time justified me 
in that remark, without intending any assault upon Colonel Fellows. 
But I do not projiose to leave it there. If the Senator had not inter¬ 
rupted me I was going on further to give testimony from parties in 
New York about the effect of the indorsement by the President of this 
man upon men who were honestly fighting for good government. Let 
me continue the reading where I was interrupted. I have read the 
letter of Grover Cleveland. 

The report of the meeting further says that Governor Hill wrote that 
a prenous engagement prevented his attendance, and said a good word 
for the Democratic State and local tickets, and that William M. Sprin¬ 
ger, of Illinois, telegraphed to Colonel Fellows that he hoped that he 
would be elected, as did also Senator Goeman, of Maryland. 

The “Reformers,” Mr. President, were out in great force that night. 
The extent of the President’s contribution in money to the election of 
the New York ticket I am not aware of. It has been stated to have 
been in the form of a check for $1,000, and I have never seen the state¬ 
ment denied. 

Of this attitude of the President Mr. Carl Schurz said, only a few 
days later: 

What maligrnant enemy of President Cleveland was it that induced Mr. 
Cooper to extort from him that most unfortunate letter intermeddling in New 
York City politics on the side of the typical “ dead-beat”— 

I was careful to use no such language as this— 
as a candidate for an office which Is the guardian of the public honor ? 

I leave the Senator from Missouri to deal with Mr. Carl Schurz in 
the selection he has made of the terms that he applies to the candi¬ 
date whom the reformers were striving to beat. I do not select a vo¬ 
cabulary of such words as these, because I know nothing whatever about 
Colonel Fellows. The Senator must settle with Mr. Schurz, who has 
lived for years in New York, who has been in sympathy with him and 
his party, and who to-day, for aught I know, still represents the feel¬ 
ing of adherence to President Cleveland as a reformer. 

Mr. VEST. Will the Senator permit me to interrupt him? 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Maine yield 
to the Senator from Missouri? 

Mr. HALE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VEST. The Senator has certainly seen, whether a professional 
lawyer or not, that when one puts a witness upon the stand he must 
indorse his general character for truth and veracity, in a political sense 
certainly. Now he brings forward Mr. Schurz as a witness in this case. 
If what Mr. Schurz says about Colonel Fellows is entitled to any credi¬ 
bility, to any weight whatever, what weight is to be given to what he 


22 


has said of the party to which the Senator belongs and all of its leaders ? 

I am not responsible for what Mr. Schurz has said. The State of 
Missouri, of which he and myself were once citizens at the same time, 
has passed upon Mr. Schurz politically, and I was never his friend in 
any sense of the term. When the Senator from Maine produces Mr. 
Schurz here as a witness he must take all his declarations; and he has 
never said one-half as much against Colonel Fellows as he has said 
against all the distinguished leaders of the Republican party. 

Mr. HALE. I am not here espousing or defending the record of Mr. 
Carl Schurz. 

Mr. VEST. Then the Senator ought not to put him on the stand as 
a witness. 

Mr. HALE. Wait a moment; as a lawyer I have gone into the other 
side, into their camp, and from their array of witnesses I have put him 
upon the stand; and the Senator, who is a good lawyer, knows that no 
court ever holds that a party calling up a witness under such circum¬ 
stances and conditions is responsible for the record of that witness who 
is extracted from the array that the other side has set up. That is how 
I am quoting Mr. Carl Schurz. 

Mr. VEST. Is not Mr. Carl Schurz a Republican? 

Mr. HALE. I have seen nothing to indicate it for a number of years. 

Mr. VEST. I positively and distinctly affirm that he is not a Demo¬ 
crat. 

Mr. HALE. Well, Mr. President, if acting in association with the 
Democratic party, writing and talking in favor of its candidate, if vot¬ 
ing for it on election day, and advocating all its cardinal propositions 
and doctrines do not make a man a Democrat, then the Senator from 
Missouri must furnish a list of qualifications which we will all declare 
at once entitle a man to full fellowship in that party. The Senator 
has had a good deal of Mr. Carl Schurz in the last few years, and is 
very likely to have still more of him, notwithstanding his repudiation 
of him now. At any rate, Mr. Schurz was entitled to speak upon this 
canvass, and upon the issue, and upon the candidates. Now let me 
read what he says: 

What maligaiaut enemy of President Cleveland was it that induced Mr. 
Cooper— 

He referred to Mayor Cooper,' the old mayor— 

to extort from him that most unfortunate letter intermeddling: in New York 
city politics on the side of the typical “dead-beat” as a candidate for an 
office which is the guardian of the public honor? If the Px'esident had had a 
true friend in your councils that friend would have strained every nerve to con¬ 
firm his disinclination to descend from the high dignity of his office; that friend 
would not have failed to remind him of 18S2, when the meddling of the national 
administration with New York State politics resulted in the most sweeping 
opposition victory on record; that friend would have struggled to the bitter end 
against the publication of the President’s letter after the new revelations con¬ 
cerning Mr. Fellows’s career, in ignorance of which, I have no doubt, that letter 
was written, and after learning which I trust he would wish it never had been 
written. 

I shall say nothing in extenuation of the fact that the President permitted 
himself to be so misused. But certain it is that the bitterest enemies of the 
President and of the Democratic party could not have dealt them a more vicious 
blow. For more than thirty years I have been an attentive observer of political 
events, and never, never have I witnessed more wanton recklessness of party 
leaders, sacrificing the interests and good name of a great municipality, the 
character of a national administration, as well as the interests of their party 
and c;iuse, to their blundering folly or their small selfishness. 

To set at rest in Mr. Schurz’s mind the question which he raises as 
to the President’s interference being deliberate and determined, I 


23 

read the following letter, which likewise appeared and was used in thia 
remarkable campaign: 


New York, November 4. 

Ex-Mayor Edward Cooper has received the following letter from President 
Cleveland; 


“ Executive Mansion, Washington, November 2,1887. 

“ My Dear Sir : I do not tliink the newspaper clippings you send and now be¬ 
fore me amount to enough to even raise a doubt concerning my desire for the 
success of both the State and the New York local tickets in the coming election. 
You know that I am very much inclined to abstain from any interference with 
New York City campaigns, fully believing the people of that city to be quite 
competent to manage their affairs. It surely ought not to be considered any in¬ 
terference, however, when Isay in reply to your letter that the newspaper ex¬ 
tracts which you inclose totally misrepresent my wishes a'nd hopes in regard 
to the fate of your Democratic local ticket. I shall be very much pleased to see 
it entirely successful. I know nothing which, if I were a voter in New York, 
would prevent my support of Mr. Fellows’s candidacy without the least misgiv¬ 
ings as to his lit ness and with considerable personal satisfaction. Please present 
my congratulations to Mr. Hewitt upon his excellent letter published this 
morning. 

“ Yours, very truly, 

“ GROVER CLEVELAND. 


“ Hon. Edward Cooper.” 


In Massachusetts, where removals from office, though numerous and 
covering nearly all the important appointments, were not so sweeping 
as in other States, dissatisfaction existed in the Democratic party, which 
plainly manifested itself in the State convention. The President’s ap¬ 
pointments were criticised, the retention of a few Republicans in office, 
was denounced, the platform was made to suit the spoilsmen, and in¬ 
stead of renominating Mr. Andrew, who had to some extent repre¬ 
sented the reformers, in heading the Democratic ticket last year ex- 
Congressraan Lovering was set up in his place, and the convention ad¬ 
journed with a howl against reform and with the avowed purpose of 
getting along without and snubbing the reformers. So plain was the 
purpose and the bias of the Democratic party in the State that hun¬ 
dreds, perhaps thousands, of the so-called independents who had voted 
the Democratic ticket in the last Presidential election determined to 
withhold their votes from Mr. Lovering, and in the end many of those 
votes were cast for Governor Ames, his competitor. 

The President did not fail here to aild to the discomfiture of his in- 
dependentallies. V/hen Collector Saltonstall, who visited Washington 
a few days previous to the elections, where he had several interviews 
with the Presitlent, returned to Boston, he declared in an interview, 
which gave great hopes to the Democratic politicians of Massachusetts, 
that he had in his interviews with the President found him “to be a 
very close observer of events and thoroughly informed concerning the 
issues of the campaign in the State.” He said that “the President 
spoke in terms of praise of Mr. Lovering whom he considered a perlectly 
honest man, who would make a good governor, and he hoped to see 
elected;” and he declared that— 

Notwithstanding the attack in the Worcester convention upon the Federal man¬ 
agement of offices in Massachusetts, he had no doubt that the Massachusetts De¬ 
mocracy were in full accord with himself and his administration, and he hoped 
thia might be proven by a majority the next Tuesday in favor of Mr. Lovering. 

It is to the credit of the Massachusetts independent that this indorse¬ 
ment by the President of candidate Lovering availed little; but noth¬ 
ing could have more plainly shown the entire abandonment on the part 
of the President of the positions he had previously taken in favor of 
divorcing the civil service of the Government from politics. 


24 


Mr. President, I decline to go further in this direction. No observa¬ 
tions of mine are needed upon such a showing. Peter Bayne, in his 
new Life of Martin Luther, after describing the slaughter and destruc¬ 
tion of the peasants’ army at the hands of the armed horsemen who 
rode in upon them, says that ‘‘upon some things all comment is 
drowned in tears.” If it were not for the sadder consideration of 
broken promises and pledges that had come to naught, though made 
from the highest place in the land, all comment upon the record which 
I have tried fairly, though succeeding but inadequately, to give would 
be drowned in derision. 

There is nobody, Mr. President, who is pleased with this situation. 
There is nobody that enjoys such an exposure. The Senator from 
Missouri, the Senator from Kentucky, the Senator from Maryland do 
not enjoy it, because at the bottom of their hearts they believe that the 
old-fashioned Democratic way, without the pretension of anything tO' 
the contrary, is the best way of conducting a government, 
i Mr. Schurz, and Mr. Curtis, and Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, and the se¬ 
lect body of independents who are ranked with them in sentiment 
! upon this subject do not enjoy this. Not one of these men who pos¬ 
sesses ordinary discernment can fail to see that the whole course of 
.this Administration on this subject has been a delusion and a sham. 

I With them the searching question that each man must put to himself 
^ will now be, “ How long shall I be constrained to minister to and up- 
J hold this delusion, this sham ? ” 

f The President himself, who, I am bound to believe, is not a born hypo¬ 
crite, does not enjoy this condition. His only satisfaction must be that 
he is getting more clearly in line with his party and its leaders and the 
sentiments of its masses, and that in the time to come he will be 
called on to make no more professions. 

i Another subject closely connected with this question and specially 
provided for in the statute is that of assessments for political purposes 
imposed upon the officers, clerks, and employes of the Government. 
The whole course of the Republican party upon this was thoroughly 
gone over in the debate which arose here in the Forty-seventh Congress, 
in which the distinguished gentleman now our minister at the German 
court, then a prominent member of this body and the author of the 
Pendleton civil-service bill, took part. 

In that debate the course of the Republican party was most full y j usti- 
fied, and it was shown clearly that whatever contributions had been made 
by officials, clerks, and employ4sof the Government toward maintaining 
the organization and conducting the campaigns of the party had been 
voluntary, and that no exactions had been laid and no threats or coer¬ 
cion resorted to to enforce contributions. The amount derived from 
all these sources in a single year was small compared with the entire 
expenses involved in a political campaign. But, Mr. President, a great 
hue and cry was raised throughout the country because of these volun¬ 
tary contributions, and in the last years of the Republican administra¬ 
tion they sank to almost nothing. The law was regarded and respected. 
The present Administration stood pledged to resist and destroy this evil 
equally with its pledges which I have adverted to in other directions. 

I am consuming more time, Mr. President, than I ever intended in 
the present discussion of this subject, and my only comment upon the 
attitude of the Administration on this phase of the subject which I am 
discussing shall be to read the following: 


25 




[Washington Post, November 1, 1887.] 


AMONG THE DKMOCBATS—MONEY FOB THE NEW YORK CAMPAIGN. 

A representative of tlie New York State Democratic committee opened head- 
Quartei's for the receipt of contributions for the New York campaign in the 
rooms of the Columbia Democratic Club, at No. 419 Tenth street, yesterday. A 
large number of contributions were received, the first of which came from a 
young Indy in the Government Printing Office signing herself “Sincerely a 
1 democrat.” The office will be opened to-day at 4 o’clock, and remain open dur¬ 
ing the evening. 


The following communication, which I read, appeared in the Wash¬ 
ington Republican of November 8,1887. I have never seen any denial 
of the facts as therein given: 


CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM. 

Editor National Republican: The following is a true copy of a receipt for 
money solicited from the employes of the Government Printing Olfice, witli the 
understanding that the names of the parties contributing would be furnished 
the head of the office for favorable consideration: 

New York, 10,31, 1887. 

Received from-- fifty cents contribution to the New York Demo¬ 

cratic State Committee. 

?0.50. EDWARD MURPHY, Jr., Chairman. 

G. P. O. Per C. V. H. 

The Government Printing Office was thoroughly canvassed. The cashier of 
the office went to every person entitled to vote in New York, and made it ap¬ 
parent to them that they must go home and vote, and on their return furnish 
the name of the precinct in which they voted. 

Never in the history of the office has there been such a complete system of 
obtaining money from both men and women for political purposes, and that in 
a manner that left no doubt in the minds of the employes that il the request was 
not complied with their places would be filled by others. 

The argument used to obtain money was about as follows: “ If Grover Cleve¬ 
land, President oi the United States, could contribute $7,000, certainly a poor 
woman could pay 50 cents.’’ 

Washington. November 7. 

From all this, Mr. President, something now ought to be plainly and 
clearly seen by every man who is not stone-blind. The political value to 
the Democratic party of the cry of “civil-service reform” has, in the 
minds of the leaders of that party, ceased to be worth estimating. In 
all matters pertoining to the organization and management of the party 
and its conduct in political campaigns no further attention will be paid 
to this. The primaries, the caucuses, tlieconventions, and the conduct 
of elections will all go on in the old-fashioned Democratic way. The 
penetrating and controlling influence of the Administration, upon the 
management of the party, both in Congress and in the broad battle¬ 
field before the American people, will be as marked, as dominant, as ever 
before. Wielding this influence, marking the paths of the party, shap¬ 
ing its course, breaking down opposition, enforcing discipline, derid¬ 
ing and defying protest will bo found the immense mass of Federal 
office-holders throughout the entire laud, as obedient to the orders of 
the Administration as the janizaries who do the bidding of an eastern 
despot. Some faint further note may possibly from time to time be 
heard in the form of a homily issued from the White House, descant¬ 
ing upon the merits of a civil-service reform, which the leaders of the 
Democratic party have never believed in, which faint note will be 
drowned in the partisan roar that is heard all along the line of that 
party. 

This year, Mr. President, the land will rock in the furious conflict 
through which will be settled all the issues involved in the next Pres¬ 
idential election. I stand here now to declare my belief and to pre- 




2G 


•diet that, in the desperate effort which the Democratic party will make 
to retiiin possession of the Government, no means or appliances that 
have ever been used in the long years past by that party will be left 
unresorted to. 

Intimidation, outrage, and mnrder will, if needed, again open a 
bloody grave, in which will be entombed anew the free ballot at the 
South. The vjust army of office-holders will be marshaled in the con¬ 
flict, and will be seen and heard, and felt everywhere. Nor will it 
stop here. Every x^iece of work performed by contract under the Gov¬ 
ernment will be levied upon for political contribution, and every man 
who performs labor, under these contractu, will be sternly called upon 
to add his ballot to the labor he performs as an offset to the wages he 
receives. No public building will be raised in the country whose 
work-shop will not be found the recruiting ground for the Democratic 
.party. No war-ship will be built from whose yard will not issue, upon 
election day, its stream of Democratic voters. 

I have, Mr. President, already seen this illustrated in my own State. 
In the post-office building which is now being built at Augusta, the 
capital of Maine, when the foundations had been laid in readiness for 
the structure to be imposed, as in all other like cases for years past, 
proposals were made for the furnishing of material and the erection of 
the building upon due schedule and invitation from the Department 
having charge of the work. Bids were made by several well-known 
and responsible contractors, and when it was discovered that the lowest 
bid was from a firm engaged in the granite business, at whose head was 
a prominent Republican, the Democrats of Augusta petitioned the De¬ 
partment to reject all bids and to allow the work to be done by the 
Government,which, through its agent, should employ and pay the men; 
and, for the first time in the whole course of the business of erecting 
public buildings for the General Government, this was assented to and 
this course adopted by the Department. 

It is not a great matter, sir; but I venture to say that the laboring- 
man of Augusta who will not vote the Democratic ticket next year 
will have as little chance for employment upon the public buildiug 
there as he would if he were an inmate of the State’s prison. 

The Secretary of the Navy is about laying the keel of two great war¬ 
ships to be built in two of the navy-yards under his management. 
Whether be takes personal part in it or not, it will be seen to that every 
man who is given employment in the building of those ships contrib¬ 
utes not only his labor but his vote for retaining in power the present 
Administration. 

There is no device, no plan of campaign, resorted to by the Demo¬ 
cratic party in the days of Polk, and Pierce, and Buchanan, to retain 
control of the National Government, that will not be resorted to this 
year. 

I turn back to a volume lying before me and read the testimony 
that was taken as to the iiractices of Democracy in the last years of 
the administration of President Buchanan. In raising funds for the 
party, with which to fight its political battles, no possible place of re¬ 
source was left unvisited or untaxed. The clerks in Departments, the 
tide waiters by the sea. the light-keepers along the coast, the postmas¬ 
ters, were all inexorably doomed. The navy-yards were a unit for the 
party. The contractors were assessed and reassessed and assessed 
again. 

The exposure of the corruptions attending the naval contracts of 


I 


- 27 


Live Oak Swift helped, no little, to swell the avalanche of public sen¬ 
timent that at last swept the Democratic party out of power. 

Mr. President, no matter what has been written and proclaimed by 
the head of the present Administration, no matter what may be here- 
.after written and proclaimed from that source, these things which have 
been are the things which will t)e, and in the management and prac¬ 
tices of the Democratic party there will be found no new thing under 
the sun. 

In the meantime, Mr. President, it is a fair question to ask: Where 
-will the Independents be? 

O 


./ 


LBJL '05 






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